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Brave Young Matildas defeated by China

A late fightback by the Westfield Young Matildas wasn’t enough to prevent an agonising 2-1 defeat to China at the AFC U-19 Championships on Thursday night.

An evenly-fought contest swung China’s as goals either side of half-time to Qin Manman and Liu Yan gave them a valuable two-goal buffer.

But the Young Matildas stormed home and pulled a goal back via skipper Amy Harrison with 22 minutes left and despite finishing strongly, just couldn’t find an equaliser.

After a first-up loss to Japan on Tuesday, Ante Juric’s side is now unable to progress from the group stage, meaning they will miss out on qualification for next year’s FIFA U-20 Women’s World Cup in Papau New Guinea.

“We improved on a couple of things [from the Japan game] and were more positive in our performance,” Westfield Young Matildas coach Juric told www.theafc.com.

“I’d say we deserved more from the game, but China also played well. We’ll get better and learn from the last two games.

“Our team gave an extraordinary effort and did better than the two games you saw.”